On Saturday March 10, at the Book History and Print Culture Colloquium at Massey College, University of Toronto, whose theme was “Books Beyond Reading” I presented the following: “Heilige Röcke (Holy Skirts) and Liturgical Linings: The Use of Manuscript Materials in the Production of Garments” (abstract) As revealed through the physical explorations found within codicology research, the processes of manuscript recycling and re-purposing were common throughout history, usually for purposes of mending, or building up spines. However, this researchRead more

Had the great pleasure to view the superb exhibition of the work of Hélio Oiticica, at the Whitney. The exhibition is described as follows on the exhibition website: “Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium is the first full-scale U.S. retrospective in two decades of the Brazilian artist’s work. One of the most original artists of the twentieth century, Oiticica (1937—1980) made art that awakens us to our bodies, our senses, our feelings about being in the world: art that challenges us toRead more

“Fashion brings together creative authorship, technological production and cultural dissemination associated with dress, drawing together designers, producers, retailers and all of us who wear garments.” (Fletcher, Grose & Hawken 2012: 8). During a recent visit to the Archives Ontario facility at York University, I toured the restoration lab and looked at rare photographs, and learned about histories that were not included in the dominant discourse. If you are not familiar with the archive you can learn more about it here:Read more

“Arsenic Dress”: English or French, c. 1860s The Fashion Research Collection at Ryerson University. Gift The Racked website, recently published a piece on toxic clothing that appears to be an unattributed reproduction of a body of work by Ryerson University fashion scholar Dr. Alison Matthews David. The Racked post even includes a photo of the arsenic dress from the popular “Fashion Victims” exhibition at the Bata Shoe museum in Toronto that Matthews David and Bata head curator Elizabeth Semmelhack co-curated. http://www.batashoemuseum.ca/fashion-victims/Read more

Holocaust Chic: Homophobia, Anti-Semitism and Abject Fashion Marketing @Mark O’Connell 2017, no reproduction without permission “ I hate the word Homophobia. It’s not a phobia. You are not scared. You are an a**hole” Morgan Freeman, Twitter, 2014. Contemporary media engagement results in the constant barrage of information and marketing that is funneled through the myriad channels that stream into devices and apps and into our consciousness. The ability for cognitive registration of any particular item becomes more and more andRead more

Abstract: Within Christian iconography there has been a standard representation of scenes from the life of Christ. The main female figure in these scenes is Mary: Jesus’ mother, an archetypal maternal signifier. In addition to an otherwise mostly male visual narrative there is an inclusion of another woman who represents a younger, more worldly, archetype, and that is the figure of Mary Magdalen. An amalgamation of three different women in the biblical narrative, her pictorial representation was reduced to aRead more

Stumbling Block Word: Environment en·vi·ron·ment noun the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates. synonyms: habitat, territory, domain the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity. synonyms: the natural world, nature, the earth, the planet, the ecosystem, the biosphere, Mother Nature; This is the dictionary definition of “environment”. However, there is another aspect to this term, which is the one that conflates the term with “nature”, and all of the accompanying associationsRead more

There is an art that kills and an art that gives life. The fine fabric that we import from the West or the Far East has literally killed millions of our brothers and sisters, and delivered thousands of our dear sisters to a life of shame. True art must be evidence of happiness, contentment and purity of its authors (Gandhi 1929). Value and fashion. Fashion used to be very valuable, now it is treated like garbage-to-be. Luxury is not luxuriousRead more

Second Hand News: Cultural and Economic Messages Encoded in the Consumption of Used Garments Mark O’Connell@2015 no reproduction without permission Velvet fragments with Medici arms, 1440–1500 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/46.156.118 ABSTRACT: Adoption and re-use of textiles and garments has been practiced by all textile-producing cultures. The manner of consumption of second hand clothes has been dictated and redefined by cultural directives specific to where the practice was taking place. Prevailing cultural, classist and economic factors can change how a second-hand garment will beRead more